2003 Rhody Festival Florence, Oregon

(All Photos on this page
are thumbnails click on small image to view large one)

Friday May 15th, 2003

Dear Diary,

It’s 11:00am and my glass guy hasn't’t called to tell me
Titanic is Ready. 18 Hours till the Rhody Show & Shine – Imperial
Meet and I don’t have a car. Good thing I waxed the Ford Ltd Wagon
Last night. 11:30 my car has glass…. YAY! Noon, Mikey and the clan
Sutton arrive from Yakima, finish up at work and head to pick up Titanic.
Pick up Titanic and run home, Mikey’s wife Linda & rest of Clan
Sutton arrive. Mike and I go to work on the interior of Titanic. No interior
window trim is on, and I still have two door panels to put together. Nothing
wants to go back together properly. 3:30pm Rick Pennington from Coos Bay
and his Friend Evan from Port Orford arrive. We do around of introductions
and continue to work on the car. Evan goes for a walk takes some pictures
of the car, while Rick entertains Mikey and I with Imperial Stories and
Trivia, and helps where he can. Ok the interior is back together time
for a much needed break! Mike, Evan, Rick, Chris(oldest Sutton Son) and
I pile in Titanic to go for a ride. She’s happy to be driven, first
a quick stop at the gas station to mix in some premium with the year and
a half old gas … Then it’s up the Coast to Cape Perpetua,
15 Miles of Windy, Switchback, Shear Cliffs and gorgeous views of a rugged
Coast Line, to our Destination of a leftover World War II Look out! It’s
a gorgeous sunny day, and the view’s are stunning. We hike around
take some pictures of Titanic and pile in for the drive back. Back at
just after 6pm and Erik still hasn’t arrived he called 3 hours ago
and said he’d be here at 5pm. We say our farewells to Evan and Rick
who won’t be staying for the rest of the festivities.

Looking South Towards Florence

Looking Straight Down the Cliff

Road Construction project on Hwy 101 as seen
from lookout

Titanic - 67 Imperial Sedan

Leslie, Lucy & Titanic

Titanic @ Cape Perpetua

Back end of Titanic

Mike & Son Chris

Titanic w/ Heceta Head Lighthouse

7:00pm we pile into two Imperials and start to head
for dinner, I back out first and park in the center of the street
to wait for Mikey, I look in my rearview Mirror just in time to see
him park it on a log, while trying to maneuver on our narrow street,
well now this is the pits, I don’t even have my camera with
me to take pictures, and there’s no way to get my own car out
of the Street to go back to the house, as Mikey’s car is Blocking
the WHOLE thing. Bob and Chris finally are able to help him get it
off the log, and we’re only a few minutes late for dinner. We
find Lee & Caroline Dillman (70 Dodge Coronet) and Mike, Cindy
& Nicholas Becker (67 LeBaron) waiting for us. We all go ahead
and order and start getting acquainted, lots of good stories and laughs
and when were almost done eating Erik finally arrives. He didn’t
make it out of Walterville with his first car, wound up having to
go back and get his Studebaker, but hey at least it’s something
he can enter in the show. 9:30 pm Bob, Chris and I are back in Titanic
and the rest of Clan Sutton is following in the 62, when we look back
and Chris says that’s a cop behind my dad, and he’s pulling
them over. We circle back for a closer view, yep he’s being
pulled over (we have no camera) so we head for home in case he needs
to call so we can BAIL him out ;-) They were only a few minutes behind
us, it was the infamous they’re working/not working 62 tail
lights. Mike got them working while the officer was talking to him,
might of helped that he dropped our name as we clean all their uniforms.
But anyway he was off without a ticket and everything was fine.

10:00pm Erik and I start cleaning up our cars, I wash Titanic
in the Dark, and then pull her into the garage while Erik is washing
the Studebaker. I vacuum, I scrub, I polish and it seems that I’ll
never get the paint dust off the inside! Finally around 11pm we
give up, did some chatting with the IML gang and we all headed for
Bed around midnight.

Saturday May 15th, 2003

Dear Diary

6:00am rolled around too fast, did I even fall asleep? I slosh
down some coffee and check my email. Load some stuff into my car,
dang it’s raining, hope it stops. Hit the shower,
the sun is out when I’m done.. The Day is looking promising.
7:30am Erik, Mikey and I all head for the meeting space. Erik stops
to pick up Donuts so that leaves Mikey and I talking and joking
in the parking lot. Here comes a Finned Car….. Hey it’s
Roger Van Hoy in a Marvelous 58 Desoto, we weren’t sure he
was coming. He had a rough trip didn’t get in till Midnight.
Mike Becker pulls up in his stunning 67 LeBaron, Gold on Gold, it
makes more of a statement than my Green on Green. Then Lee rounds
out our group with his 70 Coronet, and Erik arrives with the Donuts,
we’re a ROAD SHOW. We take the quick jaunt to the show and
park in Chronological order and then the rest of the Mopars start
showing up, people that we’ve talked to every year, all come
and park with us instead of being scattered in between the Chevy's&
Fords. So we wind up with a 68 Charger, a 65 Cuda, a 67 Polara and
then Mark Hash show’s up with his FANTASTIC 57 Fury, there
went Rogers Trophy.

Rogers Desoto

Mike & Mike Check out the 62 P/S Pump

Rear Glass

62 Coupe - Rhody Days or Bust

Erik was Imperialless this year but he brought
his trusty 65 Studebaker.

Mike Becker's 67 LeBaron & Leslie's 67 Sedan

Lee Dillman's 1970 Dodge Coronet

We all get our literature, chairs etc out and set up and Erik got
out the donuts, we’re all sitting in the sun and enjoying
ourselves when after about an hour this big black cloud rolls in…
Quick toss all the stuff in the trunks and all of us hopped in the
2 67’s and spend the next 45 minutes in dry comfort until
the sun came back out. We dried all the cars off and the rest of
the day was fantastic, Sunny and Warm. We once again block voted
and it must have paid off as Mark Hash’s Fury won an award.
Lee’s Coronet was no match for the Purple Cuda but at least
some Mopar’s won awards. One of the highlights of the day
was Simo & Päivi’s visit. They came all the Way from
Finland to attend the Imperial meet. Well not quite actually they
were on vacation and it just happened to be on the route, so we
all had a nice visit with the 2 of them, and got to see pictures
of all of Simo’s marvelous Mopar’s. Before we knew it
the show was over and it was off for a visit to Jim Burn’s
place our local Mopar Guru & Collector.

This time not only did we get to tour the Front Lot, we got to
tour the inside of his building where the good stuff is, and the
Back where the extra stuff is. He’d never had that many Mopar
lovers at one time so we lined them up and took a bunch of pictures
for him…

After our visit at Jim Burn's place it was back to my
house to see if we could polish off a 6ft Sub from Subway, gave us
some more time to visit, gave the kids a chance to run of some excess
energy on the beach and before we knew it, it was time for the cruise.

So we made a few loops through old town checked out all the Harley's.
Then we drove the 5 miles back to my house swapping cars so we each got
a chance to drive the others car. Mike Becker & Mike Sutton Drove
Titanic. I drove Mike Becker's 67 LeBaron & Rogers 58 Desoto (very
COOL, I'd never driven a car from the 50's) Erik Drove Roger's and I'm
not sure anyone drove the Suede wonder (AKA Mikey's 62 coupe) Then it
was back to my house for the 2nd Annual Bonfire and Marshmallow roast,
the kids & adults both like this one, and the weather once again cooperated.
So as you can see it was another successful and fun event. For those of
you who chickened out because of a little rain, How can you call yourselves
REAL Oregonians??? :-)